This announcement updates the May e-mail (see below) and provides added details on the Friday evening reunion event.

There will be a casual Friday, July 15  get-together at Shuckers in St. Albans. Shucker's is recently remodeled, and very open with lots of room for our group even if lots of people attend!  It's air conditioned. The menu is extensive, with seafood and Italian specials and other regular bar-food fare. We have reports that the food is good.  There's free parking on Main street and plenty of free parking in the back (with a back entrance). 

We have reservations for 6PM. The restaurant will prepare separate checks but will add a gratuity of 15%, so campers don't also need to leave an extra tip (unless you're really impressed)! So get out your GPS or Google Maps and key in:

Even more casual on Saturday, July 16, to the Creek --  rendezvous at the Hunting and Fishing Club (click here to see the maps). Saturday night camping on the creek for those who want to - everyone is on their own for food, beer, etc. on the Creek.) We're keeping it very casual and inexpensive and no-host this year, saving up for next year's event: 

...and we'll once again re-encounter the spirit of the Camps -- whether our memories are fueled by the stories and legends of the native Americans or the Round-Table knights, we all belong here.

"... this is the heart of the Carbide Camps; not these stones, not these timbers, these palaces and towers. Burn them all and the Camps live on, because they live in us. Camelot, Carlisle and Cliffside are beliefs that we hold in our hearts." 

We'll be doing some preparing for 2012 - The BIG 30th Carbide Camps Reunion!

Nearly twenty-nine years have passed since the last of the Union Carbide Summer Camps were closed. For the past ten years, groups of former campers have returned to the Charleston - South Charleston area and to Blue Creek to celebrate their time as campers and to introduce their children and friends to the place and the people.

Don't be discouraged by Blue Creek or Clilffside changes you see or hear about. We "own" part of the history of those places. Our memories and friendships perpetuate that ownership. Even if we someday have to re-unite in the housewares section of a future Blue Creek Wal-Mart, we will remember that on that exact spot in "our time" stood The Castle, or Wing 1, or The Rifle Range. 

Yes, the place (and we people!) have changed somewhat, but the spirit has not. We are still in that most wonderful of human processses, making the camps ever more perfect by our successes and our challenges, and through our remembering. We are all products of a simpler time, but as camps alumni we were well-equipped to grow and evolve as our surroundings  and circumstances demand.